Today in 1660

[digitS']

Samuel Pepys recorded that he had tried ..

.a new "China drink."

It's the first record of someone in England having a cup of tea.

Steve

 

[so lucky]

Wonder what their drink of choice was before that?

 

[thistlebloom]

A cup of tea or a cup of black tea from China? (Camellia sinensis)
It's hard to imagine that they had never had any sort of tea before that date, there's just so many herbal teas that are available in ones garden or local landscape.

 

[digitS']

Nettle, perhaps.

I think it might make a good beverage. It was, however, about the first wild plant I gathered and ate as a pot herb. I liked it!

That might not be so good for enjoying nettle as a drink. It tastes like a vegetable! I know some folks like to drink the cooking water from spinach, and such. Not me! It's like having the vegetable in a third rate fashion. A beverage is a treat, but not spinach water ...

Steve

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Well, if you want to be anally technical, a tea made from anything that isn't C. sinensis isn't a tea, it's a tisane.

Wonder what their drink of choice was before that?

Beer usually, often small beer (beer with a low alcohol content). Caffeinated drinks didn't really begin to catch on until the Industrial Revolution, when people began to move away from a work day defined by when the sun rose and set and needed a stimulant to stay awake. It is no coincidence that this is also the time that those other two caffeine beverages, coffee and chocolate, began to be popular too.

And it's even odds whether the tea Pepys drank would have been black tea at all. Black tea has never been a particularly popular type in China (we got it because it's high fermentation made it easier to transport long distances without deterioration in flavor). Since at that time there probably would have been no real market for export tea, it's likely that what he got would have been what was drunk in China itself, so probably a green tea or an oolong.

Actually it is sort of a miracle that Pepys knew to drink it , For a long time, people though you were supposed to throw the liquid away and eat the leaves (with cream and sugar)

 

[digitS']

Actually it is sort of a miracle that Pepys knew to drink it , For a long time, people though you were supposed to throw the liquid away and eat the leaves (with cream and sugar)

Well, you would turn the beverage into a vegetable! Or, either way, as a medicine, I suppose.

Steve